Saan?
by elfangelprincess
Summary: Saan? Where? That was exactly what Evangelina and Chris aka Briar thought as they landed in the world created by Tamora Pierce. As the titles say, the circle opens. This love, one being raised by Rosethorn, the other by Crane, can the two put aside their


"Oh, my head… where am I?" I glanced around. One minute I was listening to the phantom of the opera, the next I'm here. Glancing to see if I was hurt I realized that I didn't look like myself. I heard water nearby, following the sound I found myself at the edge of an ocean. I looked into it, only to see my ten-year-old self, looking back.

Sitting back I looked up to the heavens. Then down at my hand where the ring my boyfriend had given me on my eighteenth birthday still sat gleaming back at me. Light danced across the heart as tears swelled in my eyes. What if I never saw him again?

I found myself wishing for his company harder than ever.

I threw my body into the sand in frustration as I realized my wishing would not make him appear. He's the only thing I long for right now. If I could have anything in this world, it would be him. "Hey," I heard someone shouting in the distance. The skies above me held threatening gray clouds, as I watched them swirl ominously above me, my eyes lost focus. "Hey," the voice called out again as I closed my eyes. I should find someplace safe, but I just couldn't bring myself to move. If the lightning would have me, let it. I felt myself being picked up and carried off somewhere, my eyes would no longer open. I soon fell asleep in someone's strong arms as I heard the first thunder crash.

Waking I could hear someone speaking around me. "Go get another one." Someone snapped. I opened my eyes to see a man with a harsh looking face staring down his prominent nose at notes and scribbling furiously. I was lying among many plants all of which were nudging me. One had wrapped a tendril around my wrist. As I moved the plants all seemed to become active. "So, finally awake are you?"

"Ano?" I didn't know how well I could trust this guy. I stared up at him. He walked over to me and looked down harshly.

"Do you speak imperial?"

"Im-perial?" I asked.

He sighed and looked at me. "My name is Crane." He pointed to himself and said, "Crane." Then he pointed at me and waited.

"Evangelina." I supplied. He looked taken aback at my name. He pulled me to my feet.

"Here." He gave me some sort of coin and pushed me out the door. "Be back by supper." He instructed. I left wherever I was, and went to take a walk.

"You were once my companion… You are all I long for…" I long to see his smile. "Wishing I could hear your voice, knowing that I never would." I found myself back near the ocean side. A cold breeze swept some loose strands of hair across my eyes as I stared unblinkingly across the vast scene before me. "Try to forgive, teach me to live, give me the strength to try." I sang as I heard my voice echo back to me. I held my head high as tears once again threatened to blur my vision. "Help me say good bye." He always loved the sound of my voice.

Gray clouds still held over the bay. Darkness swept across the land. It felt as though the heavens changed to match the solemn mood I was in, the darkness that had so swiftly overtaken my heart. Staring at my ring once more I tried to decide what to do. I began to sing once again, "You were all that mattered… Wishing you were some how here again, wishing you were some how near. Sometimes it seems if I just dreamed some how you would be here. Wishing I could hear your voice again, knowing that I never would, dreaming of you won't help me to do, all that you dreamed I could." Bells rang somewhere in the distance. Why did this happen? Why was I taken from my world? From him? All I could feel was heartache, "Why can't the past just die? Wishing you were some how here again, now we must say goodbye. Try to forgive, teach me to live, give me the strength to try. Now your memories…" I got choked up and could not finish the rest of the song. "Hey," someone else ran up to me. "Have you seen a boy come by here? He's tan and black hair?"

"Ano?" I stared at them blankly. They looked at each other and moved on deciding they had more urgent business to tend to than a foreigner. Tan skin and black hair… that sounds like… I got up and followed them. I stalked them so as not to alarm them. "Stop, thief." I heard a gate slam and suddenly a very noble sounding voice began to scold the officers about not being able to enter their property. I saw a very pretty girl was scolding them, protecting who ever this mysterious thief was. My heart fluttered with excitement. I wanted so badly to look into those amber eyes once again.

The clouds I had called so ominous earlier began to clear above me. The sun shot through the clouds covering the earth in front of me with liquid fire. I glance back to the officers to find that the man from earlier was rushing up behind them. They all entered the cottage behind the girl after quit a bit of arguing.

I crept up to the window of the cottage. I heard their negotiations, but I still didn't see the boy. I longed more and more to see him. All to soon Crane left the house with the officers. All the people exited to the back of the cottage. Hiding behind a wall I waited for them all to sit down to a nightly meal and a table outside. Just as I knew he would, he appeared. It was… as I suspected. I watched as his amber eyes flickered nervously… Chris… mahal.

"When I found him, he wasn't speaking imperial, it was some other tongue."

"I told you, I'm a seventeen year old from another world. I don't know why I'm ten in this world, but all I want is to get back to where I came from."

"He's sticking to this story, he keeps talking about this great love that he had. They were going to be married. He gave her a ring that he can describe so perfectly over and over again."

The girl from before, the one who had blocked the gate spoke up. "Briar, what did the ring look like?"

"It was silver, with a pink heart in the middle and two small white crystals, one on each side of the heart." He took on such a sad look. "I miss her so much, all I want is to get back to her."

"There!" The officers that had passed by me before were back and evidently felt they could deal with me now. I ran across the yard having to run in plain site of all of them as the officers chased me around the table. A man with black hair and mustache caught me on my fifth lap and told the officers to leave.

"Ano, saan?" I looked around confused.

"Hoy," Chris looked at me. I turned to him and blushed.

"Hoy."

"Maganda ka." He said causing me to blush even further. He still thinks I'm beautiful. We stared at each other for a minute when the guy who still held me by the waist gasped and grabbed my left hand. My ring glistened wildly in the newly awakened twilight.

"This ring." He studied it long and hard. Everyone waited. I smiled widely as a look of dawning spread across his face. Chris took my hand from him and kissed it gently. He slowly pulled me away from the man and into his own arms.

"Mahal?" He asked unsure of himself still.

"Oo." I leaned forward and kissed him. His hands fell at my waist as he eagerly kissed back.

"That's quite enough of that." The stricter of the two elder women pulled us apart. As she did so the coin Crane gave me fell out of my pocket. She bent over and picked it up. "Oh, no." She began shoving me away.

"What's wrong?" The other woman came up behind her.

"This is one of Crane's coins. The ones that he gives to his students."

"Students?" She looked to the man from earlier. "Does this girl have magic?"

"It would appear so."

"Magic?" I spoke slowly. They all jumped.

"I thought you didn't speak imperial." The strict looking woman snapped.

"Only around those I can't trust." I replied.

"Just like Briar here." He patted Chris… err Briar on the head.

"Sweet love," I began to sing for him. "I didn't mean it when I said I didn't love you so. I should've held on tight I never should've let you go, I didn't know nothing, I was stupid, I was foolish, I was lying to myself. I could not fathom that I would ever be without your love. Never imagined I'd be sitting here beside myself, cause I didn't know you, cause I didn't know me, but if I knew everything, I'd never felt… the feelings that I'm feeling now that I don't hear your voice, or have your touch and kiss your lips cause I don't have a choice. Oh what I wouldn't give to have you lying by my side right here, cause baby, when you left I lost a part of me, it's still so hard to believe. Come back baby please cause we belong together. Who else am I gonna lean on when times get rough, whose gonna talk to me till the sun comes up, whose gonna take your place there ain't nobody better? Oh, baby, baby we belong together. I can't sleep at night when you are on my mind. Bobby Wormack's on the radio, Sayin' to me, "If you think you're lonely now." Wait a minute this is to deep, I gotta change the station so I turn the dial trying to catch a break, and then I hear Babyface, I only think of you it's breaking my heart, I'm tryin' to keep it together, but I'm fallin' apart. I'm feelin' all out of my element, I'm throwing things cryin', tryin' to figure out where the hell I went wrong, The pain reflected in this song, ain't even half of what I'm feeling inside, I need you need you back in my life baby. When you left I lost a part of me, it's still so hard to believe. Come back baby please cause we belong together. Who else am I gonna lean on when times get rough, whose gonna talk to me till the sun comes up, whose gonna take your place there ain't nobody better? Oh, baby, baby we belong together, baby. When you left I lost a part of me, it's still so hard to believe. Come back baby please cause we belong together. Who else am I gonna lean on when times get rough, whose gonna talk to me till the sun comes up, whose gonna take your place there ain't nobody better? Oh, baby, baby we belong together." They all stared as he smiled up at me. He always loved to hear me sing more than anything else.

"You know I think you have the most beautiful voice in the world." He said.

"That's one area that contains her power." Everyone but Briar seemed to be coming out of some sort of trance.

"Where's the other part?" A gentle voice asked.

"Dance." He said simply. Chris snorted.

"That suits her."

"And yours is?"

"Plants."

"That suits you as well Mr. Herbal cures."

"Well, Ms. Broadway bound, what do you have to say for yourself now." He held my hips and moved them from side to side.

"No more kissing." The tall woman separated us and we laughed. "Your to young for that." I rolled my eyes.

"How strange." I turned to the man who was still staring at me.

"What?" I smiled as he frowned in thought.

"Your veins… they're filled with lightning."

"She just has such an electric personality." Chris laughed at his own bad pun.

"Ugh," I rolled my eyes at him.

"You two are highly familiar with each other."

"Naturally, we were going to be married."

"We pretty much know everything about the other."

"Evangelina!" I heard Crane's voice calling my name.

"Crane." The taller woman snorted.

"I'll go."

"Don't." He begged me.

"You know where I am." I smiled as I kissed him despite the woman's objections. "Patawarin mo ako." My fingers ran down his as I slipped from his grasp and ran to meet the man that I still wasn't sure I could trust.

I ran to meet him before he could get any where near the cottage. "Hoy." I sort of greeted him. Filipino is not my first language and my vocabulary in it is limited. My boyfriend's family speaks Filipino all the time, that's how I learned what I know. He put his arm around me as he led me back to the green house. I smiled. Somehow he made me feel safe. I suppose he was the father figure I was attaching myself to in this new world.

"First thing is to teach you imperial." He sighed contemplating how to do this. I stared at him as his face formed into frown lines.

"I can speak." I said slowly. His eyes went wide as he stared at me.

"Then why didn't you?"

"Didn't know if I could trust you. Pretending to speak a foreign tongue is a good way to find out who you can trust you know?" He seemed speechless for a few moments before recollecting himself.

"I suppose. You know you have magic, and that you have to be trained?" He looked at me sternly.

"I've been told."

"Really?" He was now interested. "By whom?"

"A man with a gray streak and black hair, and a mustache." I thought for a moment. "He wore nice clothes and was fairly tall."

"Niko." He supplied. "You were at the cottage over there, weren't you?"

"Yes." I blushed as I admitted it to him. "Someone I know is over there."

"Hm, as long as it's not that thief boy." I looked down as he said this. "Oh, gods."

"Please don't be to angry?"

"No," he sighed. "I'm not angry. We just have to lay down a few ground rules." He began to rattle on as we walked, it looked like Chris, err Briar, had nothing to fear from Crane when it came to me after all…


End file.
